


Everglow

by TundrainAfrica



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Levihan-centric, Post-Canon, up to ch. 136
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:22:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29239758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TundrainAfrica/pseuds/TundrainAfrica
Summary: "All bright lights were the same. They emit such strong flashes, leaving eyes burning. Even when the seer closes their eyes, they continue to glow and trace contours even in the darkness.Hange glowed the same way. She burned so bright. She was radiant. Even when he had closed his one good eye, even when he had boarded the airplane and sat back on his seat, he continued to see her.She was a memory forever etched in the darkness of his mind palace. An afterglow born from a flash of radiance and iridescence."Post canon, Levi copes with loss and the 104th cadets help him out.
Relationships: Armin Arlert/Annie Leonhart, Gabi Braun/Falco Grice, Levi Ackerman & Armin Arlert, Levi/Hange Zoë, Mikasa Ackerman/Jean Kirstein, Sasha Blouse/Connie Springer
Comments: 30
Kudos: 163
Collections: Tumblr Prompts and Oneshots (Tundrainafrica)





	Everglow

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by hanjo-love from tumblr.
> 
> Prompt: I kinda want Levi to have one last showdown with Zeke/Eren and some kind of mental breakdown (the Isabel/Farlan-OVA-style of breakdown with tears and rage 💔) and him finally realizing Hanjo's not coming back 😭 (because I sincerely believe in the theory that he's still in denial).
> 
> I ended up listening to the song 'Everglow' by Coldplay to get inspo to write this. I kinda went crazy with the prompt because Everglow just ended up making me feel more Levihan emotions than necessary but I hope this satisfies what you’re looking for to a degree. I mean the next chapter is coming in less than a week so whatever I write now is gonna be overshadowed by canon anyway.

_Still I see you, celestial_

The blue sky above him offered a temporal bliss. It was the one small luxury Levi allowed himself to enjoy as they soared over the war torn earth. From his peripherals, Levi could still see Gaby looking down at the battle raging below them.

Levi had spent the past few minutes watching them with Gaby. It might have been his battle hardened state or the fatigue that came with the injuries, but even just watching had become an arduous process and alas, rest had become indispensable to him. To keep the grip on reality strong, he willed himself to count the seconds leading up to a long whole minute. He didn’t want to fall asleep. His body though had other plans. Before he knew it, the one minute he allowed himself, extended to five, then six…

“They should be back soon right?” Gaby’s voice rang through Levi’s lucid dream.

Levi was quick to return to reality. “How long has it been?”

“Maybe a minute or so?”

Actually. it may have been more than a minute. At that rate, Levi was starting to trust Gaby’s judgement more than his own. He was flitting in and out of consciousness. The blue sky above him was too blue, too quiet and too peaceful, he could have sworn for a few more moments, he was in another world. The silence--that blank slate offered to him by that in-between was enough to draw out emotions he didn’t feel himself ready to address.

Not with a battle raging below them.

 _Battle. War._ Those were the words that pulled him so violently back to reality. As painful of a movement as it turned out to be, Levi rolled forward, biting a cough in the process. He tasted blood but swallowed it back before it could force itself out of him. He watched the battle ensue below him, titan against titan on the large fish bone of a titan that had served as their arena

_Eren is inside there. The others will be inside too._

"I heard Annie shout his name as she jumped down? Was she close to him?" Gaby suddenly asked. Or maybe it wasn’t sudden, maybe Levi had just been a little too engrossed in scrambling for a way to make himself useful.

 _What?_ He asked, or so he intended. He was too surprised, at the same time he was in a constant state of pain and exhaustion that it could have come out as just a grunt for all he knew.

"To… Armin?" Gaby's voice remained doubtful. She was enunciating those syllables a little too slowly and clearly, in a way an someone would have said an acquaintances name

“Commander… Armin,” Levi corrected. Gaby had given him more than enough of an excuse to correct her but Levi couldn’t help but think he had said it out loud for himself more than anything.

The words felt stilted. Less than an hour ago, he had willed himself to say it to Armin as they prepared to jump off the plane and for a few moments after that, he had wondered if he sounded hesitant.

With the brief reprieve up in the air and the conversation that had started between the two, those memories of a few hours ago that at the same time felt like years ago, came back in waves. There was a reason he hesitated to say it.

He didn’t want Armin to be commander just yet. The transition to commander shouldn’t have been that easy. It shouldn’t have been that quick. But Levi had been beaten at his own game so many times by that cruel thing called reality that there was at least a part of him that believed it to have to be true.

“Commander Armin.” Somehow, Gaby seemed to have gotten the nuances and the tone of that title much faster than Levi had.

“I don’t know,” Levi said, finally deciding to answer that question of a second ago. With his own aches and pains, it didn’t feel like a second though.

“About them being close you mean?”

Levi sighed. He had done more than enough to engage her, and he felt the toll of it on his battered body.

 _If I continue talking, I might just pass out._ He understood that much. He also knew that he was never really completely aware about how close Armin and Annie could have been. Annie had been in the military police after all. The only time he had ever even considered her existence was when Armin suggested that she might have been the titan that killed his squad.

At the same time, as Gaby continued to talk, her tone uncertain, questioning while at the same time, trying to find a distraction to cope with being useless in such an uncertain yet decisive position, Levi found himself still pondering how close Armin and Annie really were.

 _Well… He did visit her a lot in the basement… And he did talk to her…_ Levi thought to himself as he recounted those so many moments, he started to recall that he did pass by Armin and overhear some of their conversation. _Or soliloquy._

He hadn’t thought of it too much then. Those few times he had been seeing Armin and allowing a passing thought on the friendship of those two, he had been too distracted by something else.

_Or someone else._

In that memory, her frumpy hair and her hazel brown eye, still looked the way it did everyday. The survey corps coat and insignia were routine to the commander. Objectively, they were redundant and repetitive.

 _Redundant and Repetitive._ Those were possibly two passing thoughts he had allowed himself as he looked back at Armin

 _Do you get bored?_ He had asked Armin silently, the few times he did catch him there. But he always caught himself being a hypocrite within seconds of asking those questions.

Hange wore the same coat everyday. She never changed the model of her glasses. Her hair was always as messy and frumpy as ever, only alternating between pony tails, half buns or the birds nest of an excuse for hair. Sometimes she and Levi would discuss the same things for days on end, sometimes about war, sometimes about titans and sometimes about strategies. To the point, that Levi could have even predicted her thoughts before she even said them.

Yet, he never was bored and somehow, she never failed to distract him.

And only then under the peaceful blue sky yet over the war torn battlefield, as he allowed himself a few moments to ponder Armin’s actions the past years and their relation to Annie, he did start to think back to her.

Hange had always been radiant. She had always been beautiful. And as he thought back to that last view of her before he boarded the plane, he had to admit, she was iridescent.

* * *

“You’re going down there?”

Levi didn’t look back. His head was spinning, his body was throbbing and his insides were threatening to regurgitate out whatever little he had eaten. He only had so small of a window to jump down before his own natural survival instincts kick in and try to pull him back.

 _Hange could be fighting right now_... _Don’t put her efforts to waste…_ Levi’s thoughts came in with waves of consciousness, waves of awareness of his hazy surroundings. He clutched his ODM gear a little tighter, ignoring the protests of the young brunette next to him.

 _Keep fighting._ Levi couldn’t muster the strength to leap off the flying titan but from his own view from above. He saw it. _Or him._ The man that had caused so much hatred to boil inside him for so long.

He was determined to take Zeke with him.

Erwin had ordered him long before to take him down. Only more recently, Hange had suggested that killing Zeke could be the answer. And he wasn’t going to fail either of them.

 _Y_ _ou brought us all to this point. I’m ending this now._

What could he do with what little movements he could make? As Levi soon realized though, if he gripped his blades a little harder, tightened his jaw and gritted his teeth, he could at the least put up a charade for himself that he was still in top form.

He just had to let adrenaline do the work. And when he imagined the way Hange had flown in the air, the way she had glowed so luminously, the blue sky behind her, the adrenaline rushed through him all the faster.

Levi pushed himself off the titan in one swift motion, too quick for the pain to have caught up. He never gave his body the time to protest. Before he could even free fall to the titan below, he released the cables of his ODM gear and latched it to the bones of the titan below.

All that was needed was a strong swing of an arm and a deft flick of the wrist. Something he had done too many times before.

_And it should all be over._

He only noticed, as he soared through the air on cables that there were more bombs than he had even remembered and they were scattered so conveniently over the titan. _Was someone going to detonate them?_ He surveyed the battlefield for allies.

 _Would Jean survive? Mikasa? Connie?_ They had left with the other titan shifters and Levi was at least confident that they could pull out before the explosions engulf the place.

_But can he?_

He would be too injured to pull out.

But survival had just seemed like a recommendation in his long to do list. He jumped for the kill.

_To hell if I don’t make it. Just end the fucking war._

The last thing he saw was orange, the last sensation at his fingerprints was heat, so strong that it had almost felt cold for a second before it faded into numbness.

Along the way down, maybe he did hear a few screams, a few orders to pull back. Even as he closed his eye, the orange still burned, etched in the darkness.

And somehow, the orange reminded him of her. That one final glow Hange exuded under the pale blue sky.

_You’ll make it back. Nothing that bright can fade into nothing so quickly._

_Right?_

* * *

“Hange?”

How long were those dreams? How long were those flashbacks for Hange to have been the first thing he thought about as he adjusted to the pale light of the hospital room.

It was Armin, Mikasa and Jean who had leaned so closely to his bed, he didn’t have to sit up to see their faces. Yet even with so many signs of Hange’s absence, he still searched for her.

“Hey, don’t sit up yet.”

The only thing stopping Levi was a hazy dull pain which he inferred had only been alleviated through artificial means.

“Jean managed to pull you out of the explosion but you have burns all over your body.”

“And your insides are a mess. We’re even surprised you’re alive. If Hange hadn’t done first aid on you then…” Jean trailed off. He shook his head and rested his face on his hands.

“The war is over. You don’t have to fight anymore. You can rest… Captain.” Armin didn’t have to call Levi captain. Levi was sure of that much. At that moment, that little epithet had been a source of comfort more than anything. With the way Armin looked at him then, it look like he did understand as well.

With the recent internal coup, the hierarchy in the survey corps were a mess and Levi could tell from the dull aches, the pains and the numbness in some areas, he wouldn’t be returning to the survey corps at all.

_It was high time for a retirement anyway._

* * *

Levi did not know how much time had passed since then. Since he had woken up in the hospital, his everyday view had consisted of the white walls and the occasional visitor

A lot of the time, he had been asleep as well. The only sign that time had been passing were the shorter days and the longer nights, the green leaves that with time went bare and the transition of the clothing of the few people he did come across, from the thinner cloth and the shorter sleeves to winter coats.

His world was starting to widen once again. The visitors at the nearby park were visible from his hospital window. On good days, he managed to sit up for longer. He would raise one hand, pressing it on the window to feel for himself the chilling temperatures of the outdoors. And with that he realized, it had started to get colder as well. Some days, the mist covered the glass. On other days, the glass was as clear as diamond.

As he got stronger and stronger, he had started to find entertainment at least in the occasional visitors to the park, only a window away. Sometimes there were couples. Sometimes there were families. The smiles and the silent laughter were a stark contrast to the deafening silence in the room and Levi could have sworn he heard them too.

With nothing else to think about in the quiet and empty hospital room, Levi played a little game.

_Imagine you were in their shoes._

And it wasn’t too hard. One of the women there had been a brunette with unruly hair. If she didn’t look back, Levi could at least play pretend. He could at least imagine he was the man sitting next to her on the bench.

Her tics gave it all away though. The brunette he knew so well never cocked her head to the side in that dainty manner. She would have never pressed her legs so close together as she sat on the bench. She wouldn’t have crossed her legs so gracefully and she wouldn’t put her hand to her mouth and hung her head back just to let out a light laugh.

And just as quickly as he imagined it, the radiance of the woman had faded into nothing. Levi did realize, she had never been radiant at all. The woman had been a mirage, that so quickly dissipated.

The everglow, the iridescence was elsewhere. Levi sat back on the bead and wondered. All bright lights were the same. They emit such strong flashes, leaving eyes burning. Even when the seer closes their eyes, they continue to glow and trace contours even in the darkness.

_An afterglow._

Levi once again looked back to the Hange of that day. She glowed the same way. She burned so bright. She was radiant. Even when he had closed his one good eye, even when he had boarded the airplane and sat back on his seat, he continued to see her.

She was a memory forever etched in the darkness of his mind palace. An afterglow born from a flash of radiance and iridescence.

She couldn’t have been dead. Right?

* * *

There was a memorial for everyone who had died in the war.

Levi did not know how much time had passed since then. He hadn’t willingly looked at a calendar or a clock since he woke up that day in the hospital, leaving the colors of the leaves and the coldness of the window to touch to tell time for him.

It was Armin who had taken note of the day, who had invited him and who had picked him up from the hospital. Even with the coat Armin had handed him as they left the hospital and the many times he did press his hand on the glass of the window, he hadn’t been prepared for how chilling winter wind could actually be and how it made his scars tingle and burn under its cruel touch.

“Here.” Armin quickly wrapped a scarf around Levi and the latter at the least managed a thank you in the form of a silent nod and a few murmurs.

It was Armin and Historia at the front, enunciating so clearly and so perfectly the names of every single one who died during the war. That was why it had taken more hours than necessary. Levi had to admit, it was a good gesture. It was a reminder that every single one of them had a life lived and had been loved.

Some names he recognized, others he didn’t. The long hours just listening was a brief respite from his injuries. Armin had arranged for him a seat towards the corner of the room, a sofa seat a little more comfortable than those offered to the other soldiers. His injuries were far from healed and he was still due at the hospital that night.

Somehow, Levi liked that isolation and the quietness of his spot, only reachable by the loudest whispers. And when they had said her name aloud, among the deceased, Levi started to appreciate it a little more.

_Hange Zoe._

Her name once again brought back the adrenaline of the war. Before that, as he entered the hall, his footsteps had been slow and steady, his movements gentle, all for the sake of the body that had carried him through the war, all for a quick recovery.

That commitment was quickly forgotten with the mention of her name, the epithets that had followed, _Commander, Squad Leader, Researcher._

She wasn’t confirmed dead. There was no need for that. What if she comes back?

At the least, Levi had felt it rude to have to assume such a death even without a body.

He had always believed, as long as there was a body to bring home, the person was dead. At the least, as long as someone witnessed the death and maybe discovered the body, a person can be confirmed dead.

As he slowly crept out of the room and into the hallway and out the door, back to the biting cold of winter, Levi wondered.

Among those who had looked out the window that fateful day on the plane, who had actually witnessed her death?

* * *

The long walk had his knees aching, his eyes burning and his hands numb. But Levi found himself back on the park bench overlooking the side of the hospital building.

He sat at that same spot he saw the man sit in many times before. And the brunette next to him? He had seen her so many times before that playing pretend had been a little easier.

 _Are you okay?_ She asked.

“No.” Levi had only ever answered that type of question truthfully to her.

_Of course, Armin told you you didn’t have to go yet you still went._

Levi sighed in exasperation. Hange was right. It was him after all who had insisted he show up. As a former captain, it was his duty to pay respects to his dead comrades. On top of that, he had other intentions.

“I wanted to… I just wanted to confirm something.”

 _Confirm what?_ Hange never needed to ask. When it was just the two of them in the room, when it was just the two of them exchanging glances, the occasional smirk and the occasional wrinkle in the nose, that was usually more than enough.

At that moment, on the park bench once again, he didn’t say it aloud. Just because everyone believed so, didn’t mean it to be true.

One thing he would proudly admit was he knew Hange more than everyone else in the room. When Hange wasn’t there to make the decision herself, he should have been the next to confirm it.

Yet he refused to because somehow he still clung on to that small hope, that small afterglow.

_You’re still here, right?_

* * *

Levi was released from the hospital on a chilly day. Flowers were starting to dot the courtyard and the park adjacent to the hospital.

 _“Daffodils!”_ Hange knew all of the flowers by heart. Hell, she probably even knew the names of the weeds by heart.

He never did, but somehow he did remember the name of that particular flower. It wasn’t the memorable color or the notable shape of the petals. He had only ever remembered it because of the way it rolled out of Hange’s tongue when she said it.

When Hange rattles the names of species, she does it so excitedly yet so gracefully that every name rolled off her tongue like a well oiled wagon.

 _Iris, Rose, Hyacinth._ Yet ‘Daffodil’ had been so complex of a word to pronounce, that those few times she did say it, so early into spring, she so easily stumbled, stuttered and her tongue would so easily stick out in the most awkward manner. And sometimes, they did leave him laughing.

Laughing so hard, he never did forget the yellow flower that accompanied such an awkward name.

That bright yellow flower that dotted the greens, somehow lightened the sullen mood that accompanied having to wear three layers. Until then, he had never been vulnerable to the cold.

The yellow on the green, served as some sort of a sign to hope and a sign to wait vigilantly.

 _Warmer days are coming._ And maybe on those warmer days, the afterglow could once again burn brighter.

And maybe those faint voices will amount to something. Maybe those images that served as temporal comforts could manifest as something a little more tangible.

* * *

He was finally released from the hospital and was granted a flat a little too large for a single tenant.

Consequently, it did get a little too lonely in the morning. At night though, when the dimness of his surroundings granted more liberties for his mind to wander, he ended up thinking of her.

The afterglow left its own little gift, a familiar warmth. And most nights, he bathed in it. He let it caress him and he focused on the way it brushed him so gently, again and again.

She had always been a light sleeper and it had not been anything worth thinking about for so long. And when he wasn’t thinking, he could easily doze off. And in the world between dreams and reality, Levi started to feel it.

He felt that warmth manifest itself as a pair of arms around him. And as he buried himself further into her, he started to feel it too.

The way it tickled his ears. The way it caressed the back of her neck.

Her soft breathing enveloped him from the tip of his ears down to the bones and in the darkness of the wide empty room, Levi smiled.

_She is alive._

* * *

At night he could pretend it was just them but when the sunlight would stream into the room, bathing his surroundings with color, Levi was forced to tighten his grip back in reality.

And the harsh ringing of the doorbell, only pulled him back all the quicker. He limped towards the door, grumbling nonsense. It was his first time hearing the doorbell ring since he moved and holding back the beginnings of a headache, Levi soon found out he was not at all ready for it.

The only solace of the whole ordeal lay in the fact that he was at least happy to see the visitor on the other side of the door.

“Armin,” Levi said in greeting.

Armin had his arms behind his back, and he looked to be purposefully avoiding Levi’s gaze. “I know this is sudden. But I just wanted to confirm your availability. Annie and I... We’re planning a small get together to celebrate… Celebrate our relationship, before we move in together… ”

“A wedding?” Levi asked.

 _A wedding? Armin, Congratulations!_ Hange was ecstatic.

“Yes… And if you’re free on the 26th?” That was three weeks away.

“You want me to come to your wedding?”

“It’s a small gathering… Just to celebrate this decision,” Armin corrected. “You’ll be okay going right? We could pick you up and…”

“My former team is still important to me. Of course I’ll be there.”

Armin dropped his shoulders and sighed. “I’m happy to hear that. I’ll mail over an invitation in a week or so with the details.I was pretty uncertain about the date, I wanted to get your opinion before I finalized it. You were our captain before. I wouldn’t have wanted to celebrate without you.”

That short conversation ended in an exchange of greetings but Levi found himself standing by the entrance to his flat for a while longer as he watched Armin turn his heel, ready to turn at the hallway and disappear from Levi’s view. And for a split second he saw it, the blond ponytail sticking out and the one high heel, as its owner turned on her heel.

“You should talk to him… He understands...” Armin’s gaze had softened when he said those words.

With that, the conversation between the two faded into unintelligible murmurs.

The gaze Armin had given Annie was etched in his mind for a few minutes longer. Levi stood by the entrance of his flat, staring at the plain wall in front of him. He had known Armin for years but that gaze seemed like some sort of novelty. _Where had he seen it before?_

 _Maybe when he saw the ocean?_ Hange quipped.

“You looked at your titans the same way Hange.” Levi grinned. Hange was right, that was the same smile he saw more than five years ago when they first reached the ocean and somehow he found himself a little amused at being able to see it again. And that feeling that had washed through him in the split second? Possibly nostalgia.

_It’s mutual love. Mutual admiration. And that wedding just makes that bond born of mutual love official._

“Hange, would you want one?”

_Levi, I’ve been doing research and signing paperwork my whole life. I’m not going through all that stress again over a simple decision like that._

Of course, it had been a simple decision. Hange had suggested it so casually back in the woods more than a year ago.

_Let's just live here together. Right, Levi?_

* * *

“Congratulations!”

“Let us welcome the bride and groom to the stage for their first dance.”

 _One after the other_. And Levi couldn’t blame them. Such mundane things like love and domestication had not been a luxury worth entertaining for the average soldier. With the establishment of treaties, the lifting of the titan's curse and a declaration of a new era of peace, most soldiers had jumped at the opportunity.

Levi had whispered the congratulations and only raised one hand up for a soft clap as he watched the bride and the groom take center stage. His right hand still bore the scars of a mutilation only a few years before and even years later, even the most mundane movements could cause him pain on his worst days.

It could have been phantom pains, or could have been the remains of an untreated injury. Levi never bothered to think too much of them. They just happened. Sometimes there were triggers, sometimes they came out of nowhere.

Mid song, with the decorative lights flashing and the loud cheers of the crowd, Levi’s head started to spin and he found himself rushing out of the venue before the beginnings of nausea, crept up his throat as something more.

The hall they had rented open up to a garden and if Levi turned right and straight for the woods, he knew he would find her waiting.

She liked blowing on dandelions after all.

He sat next to her and pulled one off the ground and blew on it. Even under the dim light, the yellow was still visible. And as the petals flew through the air, Levi could pretend it was his own little fireworks display. If he focused on it, he could almost forget the beginnings of that headache.

_I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist it. Looks like the stoic Levi Ackerman has his playful side too._

“I never said I didn’t have one.”

_You’re not staying inside? You’re her last family. She’ll look for you._

“You would have stayed, right?”

_Of course. If I were invited._

“You were more family to her than I was.”

_She’s lost a lot. You’re one of the few people she has left. Please go back in. Do it for them._

“One more flower…” Levi huffed, ready to blow once again, making it his own little challenge to let all the petals fly with one strong….

“Hey captain, what are you doing here alone?”

And just like that, it turned out he had been alone.

“I haven’t been a captain in years,” Levi said.

“You’ll always be _our_ captain.”

“Shouldn’t you be going back in? Jean needs his best man there.”

“I should say the same for you. They’ll look for you too.”

“I needed some time to think.”

“About what?”

“The future…”

“Yeah… With everyone getting married and having kids, I get a little pressured to get my happy ending too.”

“Why don’t you?”

“I’m just not feeling it. Did you see the way Jean looked at Mikasa and the way she looked back at him. That’s the first time I’ve seen Jean that happy in years. And I thought, did I feel the same way for anyone? Maybe before with Sasha…

Levi froze. He hadn’t heard that name in years.

“Before she met Niccolo… and with what happened when we raided Marley… I feel like if I found comfort with someone else and married them, I might just be disrespecting her memory.

Levi didn’t answer. Connie had always been talkative. Alone in the dark sitting next to him, Levi found himself a little invested with Connie’s sudden drive to open up.

“What about you? Do you have plans? Did you ever feel that way too, captain? With---”

“Who needs a huge celebration or a piece of paper to prove anything?” Before Levi even looked at Connie’s expression to see confusion, he knew his answer wasn’t what Connie was looking for. It could have been an act of fear or desperation. Somehow, he just didn’t want Connie to finish that sentence.

The two sat in silence for god knows how long before Connie opened his mouth again, ready to answer that rhetorical question. Before he could even get a sound out, he was interrupted by the rustle of leaves and some loud and quick footsteps.

“There you are! We’ve been looking for you two. Who’s up for some wine tonight?”

 _Of course, tonight is Jean and Mikasa’s night._ Levi found himself repeating Hange’s words like a mantra. _Do it for them._

* * *

_You’re her last family. She’ll look for you._ And Hange wasn’t wrong.

Without even a prompt from Levi, Jean and Mikasa had made sure to invite him over a few times a month. The couple had bought a small house a short car ride away from the center of town. It was in a convenient location for both of them who still worked closely with the crown while at the same time, it provided them both a reprieve from the bustle of the city.

 _For Mikasa in particular._ Levi only remembered, having caught her getting lost in the beauty of the green landscape outside her window that she and Eren had come from the small town of Shiganshina. Someone like Mikasa would still occasionally go back to her roots.

The peace and quiet of the suburbs only supplemented the domestication of the interactions between the two. While Levi would help around with the cleaning during the few times he visited, Jean would prepare dinner while MIkasa was out in the yard.

Having done it enough times a month, it had become routine. The change had been gradual and Levi should have seen it coming. Oddly enough it was a point he had only noticed in retrospect though when Historia was visiting as well to help around with Jean in the kitchen and Mikasa was seated on the chair waiting, one hand wrapped around her swollen belly.

Even in such a vulnerable position, Mikasa still exuded a power the transcended her current state. Levi was convinced she could still hold her own against thugs or maybe even soldiers. And somehow, that reminded him of _her._

“I’m going back to the kitchen to finish preparing dinner. You better watch her. The moment I look away, she just wanders outside.”

“To help around with yard work,” Mikasa added. Jean ignored her though, his focus back in the kitchen.

“A woman who’s seven months pregnant shouldn’t be doing yardwork,” Historia said.

_If she can still walk and move freely, I don’t see why not._

_Of course you’d agree, you would have been just like Mikasa if you got pregnant._ And as Levi watched silently as Historia reprimanded Mikasa, he wondered if she would have been saying the same things to Hange.

_Hange, you would have given me a hell of a hard time._

Mikasa let out a light laugh. Soon after, her lips had curled into a smile and her eyes crinkled. She put her hand over her belly. “He’s kicking,” Mikasa said. He had fought with her for many years and for a while he pondered the contrast of the Mikasa he knew in the middle of the battlefield and the Mikasa resting on the chair, so blissfully enjoying the peace that accompanied domestication. She seemed excited for that next addition.

_But you would have been excited too? Right?_

_Of course! Feel her belly! Before the baby stops kicking!_

“Can I feel it?” Levi asked.

Mikasa took her hand of her belly and reached out to Levi’s hand, guiding it over the top of her belly. And Levi felt it. A light kick that resonated through the comforting warmth of the belly.

 _It would have been nice._ He had caught on to Mikasa’s subtle flush, Historia’s tirade on maternity care. Of course, they were all excited.

And as he heard behind him, the ecstatic echoes of Hange’s own yapping from behind him, somehow he did start to realize, he would have been excited too.

* * *

“Uncle Levi! Did you bring anything?”

“Egg pies.”

That one toneless answer seemed enough though to send the two kids cheering. They had inherited their mother’s sweet tooth after all.

“Hey you two, go back and help your mother.” Armin gave Levi an apologetic smile and gently took the bag of egg pies from his grip. “Sorry about that. They get a little too excited when it comes to desserts.”

“At least, you have a lively house all year long,” Levi commented.

“If you want _this_ liveliness, you’re free to come over any time. We’d be happy to have you help out with them.”

“A few times a month is more than enough for me,” Levi said. It wasn’t a pleasantry or an act of respect for boundaries either. Like before, Levi preferred it in his own apartment, he also preferred those long walks in the park when there was nothing much to bother him. In those few moments, it was Hange after all who would be the one bothering him.

Armin lead Levi through the short hallway that opened up to the dining room and kitchen, only separated by a counter between them.

Annie had prepared a feast of turkey, steak, mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables. The Levi was speechless at the sight of it all. _Maybe Hange would have been too._

He had spent more than enough years celebrating that family occasion brought over from Marley. Jean and Mikasa had their own celebration and the past few years since they started celebrating it in Paradis, Levi had spent it with thsoe two. The food they served though was never as grand as what Annie would prepare. And maybe that came with Annie having grown up in Marley.

“Christmas is an important holiday for us. My father and our relatives would save for a year just to serve something this grand.” Annie explained. Levi had to note that that conversation topic seemed as important to her as she made it out to be. She had seemed nervous, her tone stilted as she had been avoiding his gaze.

That was how she had always been with him.

 _She’s been like that for years. Maybe you should approach her about it? Isn’t Christmas a time for giving? Forgiving?_ Hange chuckled at that pun.

 _Forgiving?_ He had felt no anger towards her since he had met her again when they formed the alliance. Annie had proven herself to be a staunch ally and with his own knowledge about the state of the Eldian internment zone in Marley, Levi found it difficult to stay angry at a child soldier.

When Hange had pointed it out, he saw it. If he bent his head a little forward and focused on her downcast eyes, he could pick it out. A possible flash of guilt.

“Let’s eat!” The children’s voices rang through the small apartment, reminding Levi that that was no time for a heart to heart then.

_It could wait till after dinner then._

And a few hours later, he was out on the balcony, staring out at the frozen landscape with a warm cup of eggnog.

_You know, since you’re such a grump, everyone will think you’re their friend if you just make the effort to smile a bit._

“I’ll try.”

_I know you aren’t angry at her. I couldn’t bring myself to get angry at her either. After finding out what happened in the internment zone in Marley._

“You were always too nice, Hange.” _That’s why I liked being with you._ Levi added to himself.

_Annie was always too nice too. And since the end of the war, she’d starting to show a lot of her true colors too…Have you seen how she talks to her kids? I honestly think the kids are more scared of Armin than Annie._

“Why are you talking like you wouldn’t have spoiled your own kids? You would have been just like Annie.”

 _And you would be just like Armin. The killjoy making sure the kids didn’t have too much dessert. Making sure they took their afternoon naps._ Hange’s voice had been mocking.

Yet somehow, Levi was far from annoyed. “Someone has to be the bad cop.”

The night was only getting colder and Levi felt the beginnings of the cold in his dry throat and his numb cheeks. He downed the last of the eggnog and walked back inside the small flat to see Armin and Annie clearing the table.

“They’re asleep?” Levi asked.

“Armin told them Santa Claus won’t be coming if they stayed out any later.” Even with that light statement, Annie looked like she was stifling a smile.

_Just say it. And maybe smile?_

“Do you still think about what happened in the forest?” Levi asked, possibly a little too quickly. He had not wanted to think too much about the nuances of the question and the timing or he risked never dropping the bomb at all.

Annie froze, her expression a mix of shock and apprehension. But the way she looked at him as they locked eyes, Levi was sure she understood.

“I understood why you did it. You did what you had to do and I hold no grudge for it.” Levi had kept it short and sweet. And in the end, he had left his face soften a bit, just how Hange had showed him back then in the balcony.

The next few moments were a blur. Somehow, recalling that expression had Levi in a trance for a second, yet he was eventually pulled out of it by an arm on his shoulder, guiding him out.

“It’s late. I’ll take you home.”

Levi found himself staring up at the sky as he hastily put on the coat Armin handed him.

“I have to thank you for opening up to Annie about it. It’s been bothering her for a while and I guess I just wasted too much time trying to figure out the best way to ask you about it.”

“It’s the least I can do. I visit your family a lot and I’d rather we kept open communication lines,” Levi said.

“Yeah, we should… I guess it’s my fault too. I always thought with becoming commander, I’d learn how to speak my mind, say something out loud when I feel like something isn’t right… But you know, it’s been years since I became commander and I’m still a coward. I guess I never can lead the way Hange did.”

 _Why did that conversation seem so familiar? Of course, Hange had said the same thing about Erwin._ “You’re doing fine…” Levi said.

“Hange had a way with words and she had this certain charisma I just can’t seem to emulate. I can’t help but think, maybe if Hange were here, you wouldn’t have ended up waiting years to approach Annie. Maybe this wouldn’t have dragged on for so long.”

“What makes you think so?” Levi asked. _It was Hange who told me to approach Annie. Hange is here, she’s still with me._

“I noticed… after Hange became commander, you two started hanging out together a lot. And when you were with her, you seemed warmer. Of course Hange still did most of the talking but you seemed more approachable. It was like she brought out the best in you. I guess it was a give or take, you did stop her from going off tangent as commander a lot.”

“I’ll find my way home from here,” Levi managed to say. His heart was beating faster, his eyes were burning. Levi wanted to attribute it to the cold air and the long walk but somehow, he couldn’t help but feel some sort of irritability towards Armin at that moment. _But was it even Armin’s fault?_

“Hey, are you okay?”

Levi was sure he was okay. He was still walking, he could still feel his hands and his ears even with the winter wind, acting against his movements.

 _I'm fine…_ It was as if his body knew he shouldn't have been lying and at that moment he did lose his ability to push forward. Unable to carry his own foot forward, Levi lost his balance.

“I’ll take you home.” Armin had caught him before he could fall, holding him so tightly by the shoulders it almost ached.

“No, I’ll go home alone.”

“You’re obviously not fine. You might end up dying out here in the cold.”

Levi’s legs were jelly, his throat was sore and his lips were so dry he could almost taste blood. The hyperawareness of all that had his head spinning, his eyes burning.

“So what if I do?”

“Would Hange have wanted it?” And there it was again. “I promised her I’d take care of you. I’m not letting you do something so reckless.”

It could have been an unconscious decision then but at that moment, the motivation behind such a subtle decision was clear. Levi had avoided any conversation and comment on Hange until that point because in those moments, as the harsh reality hit him so violently in the face, Levi remembered, he should have been talking about her in the past tense. He should have been accepting. He should have been celebrating her life, reminiscing about her, not shoehorning her in every single interaction.

But he didn’t want to remember her. He didn’t want to reduce her to a had-been. He wanted to talk to her, ask her for advice, keep her company. He wanted her to be alive.

But Levi at that moment was weak, dispirited and his own protests had been no match for Armin’s insistence. He had found himself alone in the dark bathroom. Armin refused to leave, insisting that he stayed until Levi was safely tucked in bed.

Getting ready to bed was routine and most nights, Levi did find solace in it. But maybe he only did because Hange had been there with him. At that moment, he couldn’t even bother to turn on the lights. He pressed his hand on the cold glass in front of him, trying to reach for some stimuli strong enough to get him to at least remember his routine.

_Just get it done. So Armin can leave. And Hange will come back again._

Mirrors had this special talent for looking for any light in the bright room and reflecting it, letting it shine so strongly even in the darkest rooms. It could have been that special talent. It could have been Levi’s own compromised state which had made it possible.

But in the mirror then, he didn’t see himself. He saw Hange. And before his inhibitions could even kick in, he had swung his hand so violently at it. Shards scattered on the sink below, and Levi could feel a sharp pain on his palm. He bit back a whimper.

“Hey? Levi… You okay in there?” The door started to rattle. “Levi! Open up!”

He held one of the shards close to him and in the dark room, it still reflected a light from god knows where. At that point, he didn’t even care anymore. The light so quickly shifted, to one particularly view he had the privilege of enjoying so many years ago.

_The forest._

It had been dark then. She was soaking wet. Her eyepatch was a little skewed. Her eyes then were wide yet frozen in shock, and they quickly shifted to eyes of determination. Then, she had bent down, pressed her lips onto his and had blown air into his lungs so hard.

Her arms were a warm reprieve from the war. Her lips, her day old breath had been like ambrosia at that moment and when she looked up at him once again, her eyes looking so deeply into him, searching for some sign of life. The moment that gaze had softened into something a little more intimate.

Levi swore, even in the dim light back then in the forest, by the river, Hange was iridescent. Hange was radiant. And she always had been. That’s how he had found her image so etched into his mind and so easily extracted and so easily shoehorned, long after she was gone.

 _Gone._ And that one word, just pushed him back into reality, it body slammed him back into reality, so violently it crushed his chest, leaving him with no means of resisting.

“Levi! If you can hear me, say something!”

At that moment, alone in the dark, Levi couldn’t even react. The only movement his reality allowed him on the cold tiled floor was pulling his legs closer to his chest and resting his chin onto them. That was the only way he could have conserved her warmth.

* * *

Hange never visited again. Suddenly, she was reduced to a had-been, a bunch of ratty photos, a loving memory that peppered conversations and maybe the few trinkets she left behind.

 _But would Hange have minded ?_ Levi found himself asking. As far as he knew, she wouldn’t. In the end, that little rebellion had been for him more than anyone else.

 _There was no body. No one saw her die._ And that was what had him clinging on so desperately to her presence, her constant interactions. The transition back into his reality, to the conventional way of mourning had been slow going.

It was an excruciating process that had Levi spending more and more of his days alone in his flat, save for the regular visits from Armin. Armin was the only one he had been able to bear having around.

Eventually, he had to open up though. And slowly, more people have been visiting at Armin’s request: Jean, Mikasa, Connie, Historia…

And one of them, happened to be someone familiar, yet someone Levi barely recognized.

“Armin told me you lived here so I thought of paying a visit.”

If Armin directed him to come here then it should have been important. Important enough at least for Levi to prepare him a seat and a cup of coffee in the kitchen.

“So what brings you here?” Levi asked. The man looked like he was familiar with Levi and at that moment, the latter took great care not to ask a name. It might just be too awkward.

“Gaby and I are visiting from Marley and I guess I just wanted to talk to you. Maybe thank you for talking to Gaby about it, many years ago before you dealt the final blow...”

 _Gaby… Gaby Braun. The one with me on the flying titan._ It was all coming back to him.

“The truth is… I’m proposing to her before we get back to Marley. I’m just figuring out how…”

 _Talking to Gaby about what?_ “What did I tell Gaby?” Levi asked. Regretfully, he had forgotten it. Those few minutes Falco had beaten around the bush, he had tried to rack his head for the right memory to no avail.

“To be honest… I don’t remember much of it either. I was in titan form then… but after the war, Gaby approached me. She hugged me so tight, told me she wouldn’t let go… And I guess from there… we started getting closer… then after a few years we started dating…” Falco continued to ramble.

It hadn’t done much to bring back his own memories of the conversation. The words, he was quick to forget. The scenes back the as he did talk to Gaby were etched so vividly, Levi found himself thinking back to it as he half listened to Falco.

 _Hange._ His memory of Hange every night in the office. His memory of Hange every night as he kept her company in the bedroom. His memory of Hange in the battlefield. His memory of Hange in the forest.

His final memory of Hange fighting colossal titan after titan. That one last view before he so unwillingly turned his back on her and boarded the plane.

In that final moment, she had been glowing. And once again, that glow did remind him, Hange had always been radiant. Hange had always been beautiful. _She’s iridescent._

_So if you love someone_

_You should let them know_

_Oh, the light that you left me will everglow_

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is very much appreciated!
> 
> Update (2/21/21): Wingz-of-shit from Tumblr made some beautiful artwork based on one special scene from this fic. 
> 
> Check it out through here:   
> https://wingz-of-shit.tumblr.com/post/642865616946184192/hello-world-this-was-inspired-by-tundrainafrica


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